A touch-enabled electronic device typically has a touch sensitive surface, such as a touchscreen or touch pad. On such devices, gestures are the primary way that users enter commands and data, and manipulate content items presented in various applications. Some of the touch screen devices such as smartphone and tablet computers include a camera to capture images or record videos. A camera application associated with the camera allows a user to control the operation of the camera.
In most camera applications, an image is captured by touching a graphically represented shutter button, which is typically in a fixed location in the user interface, such as the bottom of the screen. This fixed placement of the shutter button in the user interface is particularly a problem when the camera is a front facing camera (on the same side of the device as the touch-sensitive display), because the location of the shutter button near the bottom edge of the screen forces the user to hold the camera in an awkward manner pinched between several fingers and the base of the thumb. As illustrated in FIG. 1 for example, when taking a photograph with one hand, the user must severely crimp or bend her finger or thumb to reach the shutter button, and as a result the user is much more likely to shake the camera and end up distorting the captured image, or dropping the electronic device. Even when using a rear facing camera, the conventional fixed location of the shutter button makes it difficult to securely hold the electronic device.
In addition to capturing an image, the shutter button allows capture of a video stream. In some camera applications, a user has to hold the shutter button for the entire time of capture of a video. This is quite inconvenient, especially if a video is being recorded by a front camera. The user is likely to shake the camera for the entire video recording resulting in a poorly recorded video stream.